Linares-Blasini, Maximino G

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    Site selection for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC)
    (2021-05-13) Linares-Blasini, Maximino G; Méndez-Piñero, Mayra I.; College of Engineering; Canals-Silander, Miguel; Resto-Batalla, Pedro; Department of Industrial Engineering; Díaz-Rivera, Ruben E.
    The use of optimization models for solving the location problem have been implemented in a different range of industries and research fields. Renewable energy is resource dependent, these resources are not available everywhere and all the time. Making site selection for renewable energy systems a key topic when considering the development of any kind of renewable energy plant. The trend of using site selection optimization models in renewable energy is growing. Literature in the application of optimization models for site selection can be found in almost all types of renewable energy except for ocean thermal energy converter (OTEC) systems. The area of OTEC site selection is still very raw, the only factor taken into consideration is the presence of the thermal gradient. The current literature in the OTEC energy field has yet to investigate a detailed site selection process, which leads my investigation of the development of site selection optimization model for the OTEC energy field. A heuristic approach was developed to solve this site selection problem considering the following parameters: thermal gradient, economics, grid distance, coastline distance, plant size, and population. The thermal gradient was extracted using a regional ocean modeling systems (ROMS) resulting in a more efficient approach of calculating the availability of the thermal gradient for potential OTEC sites. The OTEC site selection optimization problem was solved for a 1 MW plant size in the Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands area of study with an average placement cost of 13.5 million dollars showing the most efficient site locations in each area of the study domain. The optimization problem for the satisfaction of the electric demand with OTEC systems for the main island of Puerto Rico was also solved, resulting in an OTEC system with the generation capacity of 1.31 GW at the cost of 2.80 billion dollars.